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So I'm going to attempt an AW campaign with a cyberpunk background to it. Not going to change the mechanics, but just the fluff. I know the Maelstrom is going to be replaced by the the bulk of humanity and what computers are rolling being in one giant network at all times. Megacorps run everything and I'm going to shamelessly rip off Cyberpunk V3 in that the true history of what happened before the apocalypse is the one with the most up-votes on the net(and most likely held there by the corps). That's all I got so far.
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Aug 14, 2012 04:09
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I'm actually in the process of setting up a Cyberworld AW game. I think the only real changes I had to make was what the Maelstrom really is and the fluff bits for the playbooks. And the Brainer is easy, at least for me, with the Maelstrom being the network almost every human and machine is a part of at all times, they're the individuals that hack people's brains. No muss, no fuss, just some fluff conversion.
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Aug 19, 2012 17:36
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Doc Hawkins posted:Huh. That's a really good point. I've been watching the Ghost in the Shell TV show lately, and you're absolutely right, a lot of the moves map one-to-one. "Opening your brain" is doing research or hacking security cameras, just like anyone can do. Looking at the Brainer playbook, the only move I would really change is probably In Brain Puppet Strings, and even then, I would probably knock it down so you don't have to have physical intimacy, but be within close range, such as following them on the streets or sitting near them in a cyber-cafe/restaurant/bar. Using someone else as a relay is avoidable as you just have your player take brain relay and call it a remote broadcast station or some such. I think the focus on the game, if I run it, is going to be how the characters see and change the world from outside lights and technology of the Megacorporate holds.
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Aug 19, 2012 20:44
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InfiniteJesters posted:I was wondering which playbooks would adapt best to a cyberpunk setting and I had a momentary stumbling block with the Chopper. Go Ganger. All about speed, thrills and mashing people's face in. The only playbook I can think of that would difficult to port over is The Marmot.
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Aug 20, 2012 16:38
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Lemon Curdistan posted:The Cyberdaemon: you are an AI construct that lives in the Matrix. You investigate poo poo. That's actually more fitting than what I had in mind. I figured Uplifted Animal would be what I went with.
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Aug 20, 2012 19:43
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If you're doing an AI character, I would suggest letting them just have some form of physical body. I think I told my player who is interested in being a Skinner that they could just be a rogue corp AI that was used to determine what was popular fashion that had found a vat grown body. Given they're not a part of the corp that spawned them anymore and it's a vat grown body, there is incentive to not get murdered rapidly. Also, allowing a Savvyhead, Chopper, Operator or Driver apply the remote or alive tags to their equipment would make for good riggers and such that are toting around robots, AIs or remote controlled equipment. Tollymain posted:What are the limits of the seduce/manipulate move? I have a character in my PbP attempting to use it to get somebody to stop picking a fight and I don't think it works the way they're trying to use it e.g. trying to reason with a person. Sounds like they can do it. Manipulate is anytime you use something other than sex to get someone to do what you want. If they want them to stop being an aggressive rear end but don't want to use the threat of violence (Going Aggro), Manipulate is your best option.
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Aug 21, 2012 16:20
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Evil Mastermind posted:She's offering a chance to not murder an innocent baby. I'd do this with +Cool. It's not your character flipping poo poo and bellowing angrily at someone that it's personal, it's them stepping forward, weapon held down and ready and calling them out to their face. That's about as Cool as it gets.
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Aug 22, 2012 02:36
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Evil Mastermind posted:That's a good point. I was thinking more of modeling the genre and combining it with the countdown clock mechanic, but yeah that feels forced. I still like the idea of having to work your way "up the ladder", though. Could just leave the target undefined until you hit zero lead. Reflecting that you have a general idea of the person who did it, but nothing concrete. Good reference for this would be Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang, Dark City and Hot Fuzz. In all those movies, the protagonists start with or pick up on a target early on, but don't work it out until the end. And then everything goes to hell. EDIT: What you could define at the start of the game is what they did to you. Did they leave you for dead? Did their goons ride in, destroy and/or violate your family and leave everything in flames? Did they kill a loved one while you were away and now you're back? That kind of thing.
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Aug 22, 2012 05:03
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Thesarus list for 'Revenant'. Figured since so much of the playbook has to do with revenge against someone who thought they killed you, either physically or emotionally, and you've come back for them, it is fitting. I would knock down the armor bonus move to +1. Figuring most characters start out with 1-Armor, giving them a +2 against everything not listed as The Fucker or Lieutenants means that's +3 armor all game. And with something like the Faceless' move that reduces harm by 1 when they're being scary, whenever you decide it's go time, you have 4-Armor. You need to be hit by a truck at this point to take any damage. Or a gang, most likely bigger than small. I'd also let them reassign their target of revenge. It's thematically fitting as the whole point of the character is someone who has gone off the deep end is has dedicated their entire life to destroying them and everything they possess.
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Aug 23, 2012 03:57
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I honestly think just knocking it down to +1 armor and leaving it as is would be fine. If the character wants more armor, they can by 2-Armor or better during play. Or earn it. Fake edit: On review of the 'This is Between You and Me' move, tacking on 'Take +1 armor for the rest of the fight' and condensing the move may be better.
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Aug 23, 2012 04:30
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For Best Served Cold, perhaps you can burn your lead while operating under fire or during a battle to give you a series of options. Maybe an escape option, one to just go cold and hold your ground and perhaps one where you take the hit and let one of the other PCs scram out of a tough situation. You could have any hit let you pick one option and a 10+ have you take -1harm for that move.
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Aug 24, 2012 04:34
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If I were to do the Sabotage as originally planned, I'd have the player choose from both columns and probably break them down to: "Good Stuff": -Done quickly. -Goes bigger than expected. -You got away unnoticed. "Bad Stuff": -The enemy is more observant. -You've damaged something important to your team. -You used more explosives than required. (-1barter or whatever resource.) Like the others have said, the omission of something is just as important as the inclusion. If you can pick two from the good stuff, you'll still have a bad outcome with it, such as being made as you blow poo poo to high heaven. The second column isn't really necessary, but if you do want to use, I think a more long-term trouble theme would be more fitting. A setup like that means a hit will have good immediate and long term effects where as a weak hit or an abject failure is going to create a whole mess of trouble.
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Aug 24, 2012 16:58
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If you're doing eclipse phase in *World, I would make the morphs the playbooks. Then for the factions I'd make them a specific move that you get for playing them. The idea I've been playing around with if I can get the cyberpunk game off the ground is for each player to choose a specific move (The Federal, The Martyr, The Gambler, etc.). It'd give them a short run down of how their character fits in to the world, a move where they can mark experience at the cost of letting the MC make a hard move in relation to who they are and one move they can use only once per character that let's them do something big, but requires a roll to see how bad it panned out for them. For example: quote:The Federal Assuming something like that works, you can give some more depth to characters without requiring a whole helluva lot.
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Aug 26, 2012 01:57
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InfiniteJesters posted:Oh, okay. I'd like to hear what they thought was wonky about the mechanics. I've ran a couple of 3:16 games and pretty much introduced players that had never touched an RPG into each successive game without a hitch. So it's not a complex game, nor is it something that really fits into the concept of what AW does. The whole 'release a new game every week!' schedule for these *World based games seems strange to me. Is it because it's the hot new thing? And yeah, I know the system works amazing and is good.
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Aug 27, 2012 22:55
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InfiniteJesters posted:Well, this guy's complaint was...Something about grenades and teamfragging? Either I'm forgetting his entire schpiel or else he wanted a game where rampant half-unintentional teamkilling isn't all but inevitable with the mechanics. Wait, what? The Grenades or 'OH poo poo, WE'RE ALL GUNNA BOOM!' where his hanging point? Not the fact that you could run 3:16 as a bunch of misfits murdering your way through innocent aliens? Jeeeez.
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Aug 27, 2012 23:00
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ravenkult posted:Dammit, I was working on a horror AW game. Don't give up! There's no telling if you will make the something similar. Go for broke and post it up somewhere for others to enjoy.
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Aug 28, 2012 01:20
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I want to know how the demon aspect in the BPRD-esque is going to work. For some reason, I had this concept of having the human-self define the starting stats and the demons being the source of the moves.
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Aug 29, 2012 00:21
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Why is there not a rough outline on google docs and why isn't linked yet? Jesus Christ, you were going to give up on this? Also, what happens with two playbooks? Is it two separate characters or two demons in one person? I think some form of dissonance mechanic for having a legion of creatures in your head would be interesting for a game, but not necessarily your game.
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Aug 29, 2012 03:52
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InfiniteJesters posted:So regarding that WW2 Regiment paratrooper game I mentioned earlier, I'm debating with myself whether it would be better for the characters to meet manually (they ARE all paras from different squads that have been separated, after all) or for it to take place presumably a few minutes/hours after they linked up with each other for survival. Start in Media Res, but have the actual start of the session be a lull in the action. It's the first moment they got to know each other and if there is Hx gen in it (I just did a quick scan), say it came from being in the poo poo with these strangers before the game started.
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Sep 2, 2012 03:50
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Time to add some stuff. Here's a list of what flavor text I re-wrote for the Cyberpunk AW game. Feel free to use it, get ideas from it, modify it or outright ignore it. Most of these are what people were interested in playing so far and there are genre references for some of the names. If we're tossing out ideas for games done with the *World ruleset, may I suggest a setting where you are humans/robots fighting against the robot apocalypse or one based off of Greek myth and tragedies? I was already toying with the Greek one, but I don't have a strong understanding of the Greek tragedy as a whole and no time to devote to it.
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Sep 5, 2012 00:30
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mllaneza posted:I'm applying for your Machine World PBP as a Savvyhead named Cullen, get started on the OP. I'm up for this if I can play a Casshern knock off. HitTheTargets posted:
I've seen the review of Polaris and for some reason it doesn't sit right with me. At least play style-wise. But I'm pretty sure you're right.
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Sep 5, 2012 04:18
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Doc already said it, but I'm going to say it again: your bots don't have to be a unified threat. Terminator-verse had Skynet and the Communist counterpart slinging nukes back and forth. The Matrix had machines that were part of the collective but wholly themselves. You can make the machines a little more disturbing by having them become more human than they realize. Overseer Pi-R-D3l1z' unit is currently competing with Overseer Rho-R-3 in who can kill the most humans in the most efficient manner because they hate each other and want to see the other scrapped and replaced. And since everyone is posting custom stuff in the thread, I felt motivated... "That Music posted:
I through it together at work. It's rough, needs balanced and work, but I've been fixated on Casshern for a while. Also, female names of robot rear end kickers would be appreciated. Tasoth fucked around with this message at 19:24 on Sep 11, 2012 |
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Sep 6, 2012 05:31
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MadRhetoric posted:You made an Astro Boy class and don't have Atom as a name, Tasoth. Hand in your cat ears and ~*ANIME*~ badge. Tobio was the original Japanese name of the boy Atom was designed to look like.  Gonna edit some names up into dat post. Edit: Got drat, that's a lot of lady's names. Now I need more dude's names. Or neuter ones. Tasoth fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Sep 6, 2012 |
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Sep 6, 2012 23:44
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Tollymain posted:The Machine Hunter idea is loving kickass, not gonna lie. D'aww, shucks.  SlimGoodbody posted:I'm guessing you are a fellow enthusiast of The Protomen. Why yes. Let me inform you of how I plan to end my brother's conflict in this place and at this moment. Lemon Curdistan posted:Did you mean "Jean-Luc?" Sunuva. Thanks for catching that. I read that as 'Jean-Luc', so yeah, already thinking of that. I tossed up Domun as a name. Is there any criticism of the PB? I figured there might be some rough areas or things that don't work. I honestly want it to be usable without being game breaking or unwieldy.
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Sep 7, 2012 16:24
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Emong posted:Deckard's already in there. There are, however, a suspiciously low number of Atomic Robo references in that playbook Then help me fix it. I really don't want that much japanimation.
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Sep 8, 2012 03:59
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That Rough Beast posted:
Scrape posted:I agree with this. Destroying a robot and gutting it for parts makes way more sense fictionally, as well. You are literally upgrading yourself. If you think that's too easy, you could say "When you disable an advanced robot without destroying it completely..." which is much more specific and has some fun implications, like "Don't shoot it! I need it!" Thanks for the feedback. I was unsure of how to do the Hardware Upgrade move but still wanted to toss something in that reflected Megaman, which is an obvious inspiration. I like the concept of not having to resolve the front, but relying on a machines or robots in a game makes it too dependent. Maybe as an option for when you go looking in a market place or set the word out you can instead choose to take hold based on how much you spend in barter, maybe with a roll similar to how an Angel heals people/barter works. The move also partially reflects the Hunter getting an upgrade and completely taking its opponents by surprise, but their battle plans adapting once its been exposed. And Scrape is right. While the Machine Hunter is obviously a product for war, specifically to counter machines, much of the source material often reflects the robots being the host human character. I know it's a function of the narrative, but building a character you can still play and have decisions affect should be paramount. They're also different in regards to damage in how they recover. They need repairs, either by a savvyhead, a NPC the MC has for it or someone who has hold from the special move. There is no self repairing below 9:00 and inability for the most common source of healing (Angels) to repair them. Outside of that, I think debilities are fine as they reflect horrid damage that can not simply be repaired.
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Sep 8, 2012 19:27
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I like ideas that have come up. The +weird makes sense, but instead of just machinery, I like the concept of 'Whenever you integrate something from another thing...' to reflect stealing memories, patterns of thought and maybe the physical shape of another. Then use the hold to increase harm and maybe make someone give into your demands? Kind of like a bigger, nastier going aggro without the uncertainty of the roll for the move.
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Sep 8, 2012 21:11
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Tendales posted:I think AW's stats are really interesting, because they're all grounded in the character's personality and behavior, instead of trying to objectively model their capabilities. Courage, Fury, Grace, Virtue, Sagacity, Cunning, Unorthodox, etc. What are the main attributes you want to model? Most of my experience comes Dynasty Warriors, and most of the traits shown are some form of courage, military might, courtly grace/knowledge, tactical genius and some form of flaw that leads to a heroic or tragic demise.
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Sep 9, 2012 00:10
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For that Biotic charge, I would potentially link it to Seize by Force. Something like 'When you would Seize by Force, roll +weird/biotic/space magic. On a 10+, you take it without suffering Harm (or -1 harm). On a 7-6, you Seize it but take harm and options. On a miss, you are bogged down and need help to get out of the situation'. Just a rough idea.
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Sep 14, 2012 22:36
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If you went with a point pool expenditure that you can pay an equal volume to stop damage. Maybe create a basic move that requires Cool for when in combat that lets you restore it with various levels of success reflecting either hitting the deck in a good spot or recharging in the middle of situation that is not a good place to be.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:16
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Could probably cut it down to four: Training Empathy Apathy/Focus Biotics. Make the basic moves reflect the ability to fight, do something normally, be a huge rear end in a top hat, be a saint and using space magic.
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Sep 15, 2012 05:27
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Why not swap the word for Education with Experience? Reflect it's just what they've picked up from dealing with individuals and situations throughout their life? Also, I suggest the Faceless. I'm currently playing one in a cat mask and it's a blast.
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Sep 16, 2012 17:01
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Echophonic posted:The only issue I see with this is that the way the ME classes work is very all-or-nothing. You either have skill in that branch or you don't. Though, there's worse things than starting with a bunch of =0s or -nils. Biotic potential kind of skews it, too. Most humans don't have any, but Asari do, so they'd be starting with Biotics-nil and Biotics=0 in this kind of setup. Having your race set a stat if your class doesn't seems pretty reasonable. Possible crazy solution: your race determines what stats you have access to. It's nutty, but Asari may always have Tech, Biotic and Paragon, while a Krogan gets Combat, Biotic and Renegade. Or some such. The playbooks could give you a series of +/-s that you choose to place in what stat.
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Sep 16, 2012 22:56
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Weird is for more of 'this person has done something that is head and shoulders above normal'. Most examples of Weird are things like being a prodigy, genius or someone whose instinct causes them to always be right. It's not necessarily 'Huge gribbly monster/rampant psyker' but just, well, weird.
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Sep 23, 2012 18:24
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Scrape posted:Apocalypse World In Space sounds pretty awesome. Vanilla AW has an implicit technology scarcity, so if your setting is high tech then you'll wanna play up the other problems- oxygen, food, land, energy, whatever there is NOT ENOUGH OF. This is true and applies to such things as a Cyberpunk setting, but you can get over the limitation somewhat by the Hitech tag. People can still have serviceable technology about them (think developing countries), but sleek, fancy and compact technology would get +Hitech. It would mean something as simple between the difference in a garage door opener the size of a toaster and one the size of a deck of cards or a massive boom box and a digital music player the size of a matchbook. Scarcity can be just as much about quality and reliability as quantity.
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Sep 25, 2012 17:08
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Lemon Curdistan posted:To be honest, oxygen is a far more interesting resource to have scarcity of than technology. This would lead to the guy who can keep the ox scrubbers being a big shot and every green plant left alive more valuable than gold. Have your Faceless demand payment in plants and by the end of the story arc, he owns most of the plants and all the power.
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Sep 25, 2012 21:38
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Other good source of retro-future is Mutant Chronicles. It is literally World War 1 in SPAAACE!!!
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Sep 26, 2012 17:48
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An interesting option for Honor and Infamy would be modifying the Hx systems. Instead of everyone having their own Hx and increasing it at the end of the game, the MC compares what you do in play against a list of actions and modifies a single Hx stat. You are honorable or disgraceful and everyone knows it when you help/hinder.
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Sep 27, 2012 04:28
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Doc Hawkins posted:
gently caress off Big Weapons Sharps' Long Bow of Far Shooting (3-harm far hi-magic) Dwarven Repeating Crossbow (3-harm close/far messy area) Wand of Sheet Lightning (3-harm close loud autofire) Staff of Kuiper's Armageddon (4-harm close area messy) I'll just leave it at that for examples...
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Sep 28, 2012 01:20
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InfiniteJesters posted:I'm still hammering out details for that paratrooper Regiment game I mentioned a few pages back. Oddly, I think most of the combat moves should stay away from directly dealing damage. A huge part of a fire fight is returning fire and hoping to god you don't hit. Knowing exactly who and how you kill at the end of the move would be an interesting take and could reflect something cold blooded and planned instead of just a fight.
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Sep 28, 2012 03:26
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